My wife is vegan (and a Japanophile) and uses konnyaku as a meat substitute -- the issue is flavouring, and with various seafood flavours (often seaweed-derived

My wife is vegan (and a Japanophile) and uses konnyaku as a meat substitute -- the issue is flavouring, and with various seafood flavours (often seaweed-derived) it makes an excellent fish/shellfish substitute. One thing to note is that it requires boiling before further cooking to get rid of the initial rather off-putting aroma. I've lately begun seeing it show up as the base of various "gluten-free diet wonder-food" products in our local wholefood supermarket (in the UK), at about five times the price it is in your typical Chinese/Asian foods supermarket ...